Joe Gamer

I picked up Fantasy Flight’s Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Core Set. I was quickly impressed with its massive volume and weight but put off somewhat by it’s considerable price (MSRP $99.95). I should have gotten it though Amazon.com (click the link above to the product or the ad below), but I’m creature of impulse, and I was there, and it was there, and well I can drop that kind of scratch – (if my wife says so). I wanted to rip into it immediately, but waited until I bought it. Then I had to wait until I got in our car. THEN I still had to wait until I got home. OK, truth to nuts, I didn’t make it home. I had to stop over at Monkey Lord’s place and I ripped it open there.

I’ve seen previous incarnations of Warhammer’s attempts at a RPG, and while I’ve never played it I was always impressed. I could never get into the groove of the game or find anyone willing to run a game so I never got a chance to play. That said, it didn’t prevent me from purchasing one of the editions (5th I think) for myself. It currently resides someplace on one of my bookshelves drawing all of the other books around it into it’s own orbit. Here I’m imagining all of the books being pulled close to the Warhammer book due to it’s own gravity and the book saying “I win”. So when I saw this new product on the shelf, turned over the huge box in my hands and noticed that it contained 35 special dice I knew it had to be mine.

Being both a Games Workshop and Fantasy Flight product, the artwork is of course brilliant. Once the rather huge box is opened, one finds many cards, counters, and yes – dice. So many dice. Also included are four soft bound books: one for all players, one for wizards, one for clergy, and one for game masters. The books can be purchased separately, but in reality one boxed set is needed by a gaming group. Finally the discerning eye will find three simple card stock boxes which at first impression have no real purpose. Seems these are how one keeps track of his or her character’s cards between games. I find that both interesting and a bit annoying at the same time.

By simple examination of the contents, it may not be easily discernible how one plays the game. While the archetypal polyhedral dice are present, they are not covered with numbers but with archaic symbols instead. Character sheets are double sided but only about 1/3 the size of a standard sheet of paper. The cards vary in size, shape and meaning. I imagined that the game may be played on two levels: as a classical RPG like Dungeons and Dragons or a pseudo-board game like Warhammer Quest or Descent. I can tell you now it is purely a Roleplaying Game.

I’ve considered that adding cards to an RPG might be benificial, but I had yet to see it actually put into action. This game does this and does it pretty well. The cards represent talents, abilities, insanities, and wounds that a character acquires over the course of his or her career.

The books are not difficult to read if read thoroughly and in order. If you wish to simply thumb trough the books and get an idea of the character classes and what each is capable, then you will NOT be happy. Thumbing through the books can be a very annoying experience as the Player’s Guide is designed to teach and is not designed to be a reference. I’m not entirely happy with the order that the concepts are presented either as some concepts are referenced before they are explained. If you have patience though, the concepts eventually become clear.

The Game Master’s guide presents some additional core concepts as well as some game master advice. Since many of the basic concepts of how to play have already been covered in the Player’s Guide (you will read that one first won’t you), many of the new concepts presented in the Game Master’s guide are less annoying to learn. The Game Master’s guide also provides a short adventure to get things started and while I haven’t played it yet, it feels like the presentation was a little hurried. I’ll comment more once I run the adventure myself.

There are a variety of starting character professions included in the set. Players choose a profession for their character which provide a number of special abilities and possible directions for progression. As a character gains experience, he or she may purchase advancements that include stat increases, access to new abilities, and even a new profession. Characters get a bit of a boon if they follow their profession all the way to the end of it’s advancement, but eventually the character must choose a new profession if he or she wishes to continue to advance. Each profession has exit professions that generally expand or compliment the current profession. Player that run a wizard or a member of the clergy will need to thoroughly read the wizard’s guide or the clergy’s guide respectively. The one main drawback to the set is that there are only a limited number of professions, but that will be addressed with expansions (of course).

Expansion is not only planned, but already here. The very first thing I realized as I read the books is that everyone is going to want their own Extra Dice Set and they are now available. Honestly you’ll probably want 2, more if you have a lot of disposable income and don’t like other people touching your dice.

Also, the first expansion of character classes, The Adventurer’s Toolkit, has been released though I have yet to examine these. Both items can be found on Amazon, and I’ve also seen them at hobby stores and even Books A Million.

© 2010, Joseph Little. All rights reserved.